The Vanity Case (Sondra Blake Book 1) Read online

  Sondra moaned as he stayed inside her, as deep as he could go in that position. ‘Do it,’ she said, her breath steaming the window. ‘Do it.’

  He pulled back and drove in. His hands gripped her waist, almost lifting her to let him drive her down as he pushed up. His pace quickened until she was gasping for breath and her own glass fell from her fingers as she pressed her hands to the window and braced herself. He was lost in the lust of it; his breathing became a sequence of grunts as his basest instincts took over. The drive for pleasure. The need for release. Sondra focused on the sensations welling up from between her thighs and mewled as he took her closer to the edge. She felt him stiffen, felt his shaft swelling within her, and thought for a second that he was not going to take her with him. Then the added pressure held her at the edge of the precipice, and when he came, flooding her, she fell, gasping for breath as her climax took her.

  ~~~

  Silently, Sondra slipped from Archer’s bed and began searching for her clothes. Her thong was on the floor and she stepped into it, settling it into place as she spotted one of her shoes. The other was still on her left foot; he had enjoyed her being his height and seemed to like the idea of sex with a woman in heels. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she slipped her toes into the shoe and reached down to close the ankle strap.

  ‘You have to go?’

  She looked around and gave the man in the bed a smile. ‘I didn’t want to wake you. Sorry.’

  He gave a vague shrug. ‘You could stay for breakfast.’

  ‘I need to get home and I’m not going to be seen leaving the hotel in the morning. I don’t mind the spotlight, but I do like my private life private. I’m not going to be one of your conquests.’

  ‘They’ll suggest it anyway. It’ll be in the gossip columns tomorrow.’

  ‘Probably. I’d rather not give them ammunition.’ She stood, a tall, feminine figure in a red thong and high-heels. Her dress had never made it to the bedroom. ‘Stay in bed. Get some sleep. I’ll let myself out.’

  He gave her a rather boyish grin. ‘You stand there like that and expect me to let you leave?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You’re a goddess.’

  She chuckled, a warm, throaty sound. ‘Maybe, but this goddess is walking out of here. Thanks for tonight. I enjoyed it.’

  ‘My pleasure. Literally.’

  She gave him a wave and strutted out of the room. It had been hers too, but boy had she had to work for it. Shaking her head as she thought of all the selfish lovers she had had before, Sondra located her dress and got ready to leave. No, that had not really been worth being in the spotlight for, but at least she could now say she had had sex with a movie star.

  Part Four: Fairies and Orcs and Demons, Oh My!

  New York, NY, 19th February 2017.

  Clarke’s eyes snapped open and he frowned up at the ceiling of his bedroom, barely visible in the dark. He looked at his bedside table where the clock told him it was three o’clock. Why was he awake at three in the morning? He had been dreaming… He had been dreaming about Sondra, which was embarrassing. She had been dancing with Dillan Archer. A waltz. Clarke had watched them dancing and had found himself hating the actor with a passion, but then someone in the band had dropped his instrument and the noise had broken the dream. That was stupid. Turning over, Clarke closed his eyes.

  A sound, a sort of scraping noise, jerked his eyes open again. Had he really heard that, or had he drifted off? He listened, straining to hear anything else, and then decided that it would be safer to check. Sliding from under the sheets, he opened the drawer on his bedside table as quietly as possible and took out his pistol. His Glock 17 was in a safe in the hall, but he kept his off-duty piece, a Glock 26, beside the bed when he slept. As quietly as possible, he worked the slide to chamber a round and then moved to the door on bare feet.

  Cracking the door open, he slipped out of the bedroom and into the lounge. There was no sign of anyone there, and no sounds to draw him one way or the other. He edged to the middle of the room and closed his eyes, listening… And something scraped over something else in the kitchen. If they were burglars, they were strange ones. It sounded almost as though they were doing the dishes.

  Moving quickly but quietly, Clarke headed for the open kitchen door. Nothing was visible through it, so he moved closer. Another sound, and this time he was sure it was the sound of cutlery scraping over ceramics. He had left his dishes from his evening meal on the counter, so it was probably that, but what was moving the knife and fork? Only one way to find out. In one, quick movement, Clarke stepped forward, snapped on the kitchen light, and swung his weapon around to cover whatever was in there. He froze.

  Standing on the counter, gravy coating her pale skin, was a woman no more than five inches in height. She had a cap of blonde hair, and purple-blue butterfly-like wings protruded from her back. Aside from her coating of gravy, she was stark naked and frozen like a deer in the headlights as she stared back at Clarke. A fairy. There was a fairy in his kitchen.

  Quite suddenly, the tiny woman lurched upward, and he thought she was going to run. Instead, she bent double, her face contorted, and then retched up whatever she had managed to scrape off his leftovers.

  ‘Shit,’ Clarke muttered. He knew little about fairies, but he knew they were carnivores. They could give you a nasty bite if you got too close and they had about the same intelligence as a house cat. Maybe the cooked meats and gravy did not sit well on their stomachs. Maybe. He frowned as the fairy continued to retch; she looked thin and, now he could see her wings properly, one of them looked torn.

  Realising he still had his pistol pointed at her, Clarke lowered it and raised a hand in placation. ‘Uh, just… Just stay there, okay?’

  The fairy hissed at him, but she remained where she was as he slowly opened the refrigerator. He had some steak in there he had planned to cook tomorrow night. Well, tonight. Taking that out, he stepped to the counter as far from the fairy as he could get, and took a knife from the block. That got another hiss and a shuffle backward. She crouched, her hands raised and spread like a wrestler. Fairies had claws too. Clarke cut a couple of short strips of meat from his steak and then threw them down the counter toward the fairy. They landed closer than either of them might have liked, but the fairy sniffed, hissed, and then edged forward. Clarke stood stock-still, not wanting to spook the little creature.

  There was a rapid grab, another sniff, and then the fairy took off for the edge of the counter. She dropped, spreading her wings and managing to control the fall. Her left wing was definitely torn; Clarke could see some of the panels flapping loose from the golden framework which held them stiff on her back. It was doubtful that she could fly, but she could manage a sort of glide. She landed badly, but got quickly to her feet and dashed past Clarke to the fridge. There was a squirming slide, and she was gone, hidden behind the big appliance.

  ‘Okay,’ Clarke said to the room more than the fairy. ‘I have a fairy behind my fridge. What am I supposed to do about that?’

  ~~~

  When Sondra’s phone began to ring, she turned her head to glower at it. Okay, so she was awake, but it was Sunday and she had been nesting under her duvet. Reaching out, she grabbed the phone, manoeuvring it so the charging cable would not snag, and switched it to speaker mode.

  ‘Clarke? Is there another body?’

  ‘No,’ Clarke replied, and then seemed to change his mind. ‘Yes, but it’s a live one.’

  ‘Clarke, it’s Sunday and my duvet is warm.’

  ‘There’s a fairy in my kitchen.’ Sondra stared at the phone in silence for long enough that Clarke felt he had to say something else. ‘I got woken up at three by noises in the kitchen and there was a fairy trying to eat my leftovers. I gave her some steak and she’s been hiding behind my fridge ever since. She looks half-starved and her wing’s hurt. What do I do?’

  Sondra frowned: the fairy was probably not going to be a problem, but it might be and fairies
were ill-suited to living in an apartment. ‘Give me thirty minutes or so. I’ll come over and we’ll see whether we can figure out what she’s doing there.’

  ‘How are we–’ He was cut off as Sondra disconnected the call and, reluctantly, pulled aside the duvet.

  ~~~

  ‘Nice place,’ Sondra said as she walked into Clarke’s lounge.

  ‘Thanks,’ Clarke replied, watching as she unbuttoned her coat. ‘It’s only one bedroom, but it does for me.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just got one bedroom. The other became a workroom, and if I have someone staying over, they’re usually in my bed.’ The place was a bachelor pad, without the pad. More of a single man’s apartment with furniture which had seen some use, various professional magazines left where they came to rest, and a mismatched coffee table which looked like it had come from a garage sale. There was nothing feminine about it and you could sort of tell that Clarke liked his home, but did not really care about keeping things tidy or especially clean.

  Clarke’s cheeks coloured. ‘Have a good time last night?’

  ‘Wasn’t too bad.’ She tossed her coat over a chair. Beneath it she was wearing a short, cap-sleeved T-shirt with a pair of lips printed on the front, a short, black-and-red-plaid skirt, and some scruffy-looking knee-high boots with a couple of inches of heel. There was a bra under that shirt; Clarke could tell, because her chest was always a source of distraction, but it was not normally quite so… pushed up. ‘Rich people having a good time and pretending it was for a good cause, and that they could stand each other. Oh, Dillan’s co-star, Melinda Kozlowski, do a check on her tomorrow. There’s a jealousy angle, but I don’t think it’s her. Too young.’

  ‘Uh, too young?’

  ‘Whoever’s doing this isn’t young. The cases you found could be from more than one killer. There’s the shift to London we haven’t explained. So, we might not be dealing with one perpetrator, but whoever it is, they have to have had time to learn they’re mortal. Really learn that they’re going to age and die.’

  ‘I guess that makes sense. So, you enjoyed yourself, but you were still working.’

  Sondra flashed him a grin. ‘That about covers it. Until I went back to Dillan’s suite. The sex was passable.’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘Typical guy,’ Sondra went on, either oblivious to Clarke’s discomfort or, possibly, enjoying it. ‘Brains in his dick once he sees a naked woman. Selfish, you know?’

  ‘Uh, speaking as a typical guy, I prefer some equality in the bedroom.’

  ‘Then you’re not a typical guy. Where’s this fairy?’

  Glad of the change of subject, Clarke pointed to the kitchen door. ‘She’s behind the refrigerator. I coaxed her out with a little more steak just before I called you, but she went back as soon as she had her claws on it.’

  ‘Okay. Do you have a pen and paper, or a chalkboard? Something I can use for spell symbology.’

  Walking into the kitchen, Clarke pulled a magnetic whiteboard about the size of a large pad of paper from the fridge. There was a dry-wipe marker pen attached to it by a clip. ‘I usually use this when I’m making up something I’ve never done before. What are you planning?’

  Taking the board, Sondra unclipped the pen and tapped it against her lip. ‘Going to try to talk to her. So… Well, the base is going to be erimnor.’ She marked a glyph on the board and Clarke recognised it as the symbol used in all magic dealing with the mind and thoughts. ‘Then we want her to understand and be understood.’ More symbols went down and Clarke followed the pattern of the spell as she wove the string of glyphs. It was not easy.

  ‘Your, uh, style seems a little… odd,’ he said as she finished drawing out the pattern of glyphs.

  ‘Oh, uh, it’s… You know that the symbols we use in magic come from a language called Sarnica, right?’

  Clarke nodded. ‘It’s a dead language. It’s like Ancient Egyptian or something. We’ve got the symbols, but we don’t really know what they’re supposed to sound like and we’re not even sure of the grammar.’

  ‘Yes, and no. The Lornaron spirits and demons speak it. Well, quite a few of the spirits and all the demons. Alby says it was originally a demonic language, though that sounds… wrong. I can speak and read it. Alby says my accent is terrible. There were several humans who knew it after the Collapse, but most of them have died since and there haven’t been that many people learning it. If you know the language, it’s easier to formulate spells on the fly. You can write the descriptions with more surety and specificity.’

  Clarke’s eyes were wide. ‘So, that was the language Alby kept using and you kept telling him to use English.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Now…’ She turned her attention to the pictographic symbols on the board and drew energy up from her core as she fixed the spell into her mind. The pattern filled, energy flowed, and she sighed as the spell fixed itself into her mind. Turning to the big, silver-metal refrigerator, she called out, ‘Hey, fairy. Come on out. We’re not going to hurt you.’

  There was an odd echo of the words in Clarke’s mind, as though the spell were translating English into English and replaying the sounds. Nothing happened for a second or two and then a small, pale face appeared in the gap between the appliance and the kitchen units.

  ‘That’s it,’ Sondra said, dropping to one knee. ‘You’re safe. We just want to know why you’re here?’

  ‘And what her name is,’ Clarke said.

  ‘She doesn’t have one.’ The fairy began making sounds as she crawled out onto the linoleum. Once she was standing, her arms began moving as well. ‘Uh, slow down a little, please. I can’t process the images.’ What the fairy was saying did come as images, flashing through Sondra’s mind in rapid succession. The creature had no real language, but it had a mind, and senses of self, other, time… It was concepts and memories flowing out of her as she chattered nonsense.

  ‘What’s she–’ Clarke began, but Sondra waved him to silence until the fairy stopped her noises on a long, keening moan.

  ‘She’s been here about nine or ten days. She’s killed every spider in your apartment. She says it’s a poor hunting ground. She was starting to starve, so she tried the “messy, sticky stuff” you ate. Is that why she still has gravy stains on her boobs?’

  Clarke grimaced. ‘Uh, yeah. She threw that up, but she’d obviously tried a fair amount before her stomach rebelled.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Then you gave her the steak. She’s still hungry.’

  ‘I can cut some more, but I need to get into the fridge.’

  Sondra pointed at the refrigerator. ‘He’ll get you some more meat, but he needs to get in there.’

  The fairy’s head turned to look over her shoulder, snapped around to look at Clarke, and then she darted forward, jumping up to grab the handle of a drawer, and then clambering lithely up the stack to the counter. ‘That’s how she got up there without flying,’ Clarke said, opening the fridge door.

  ‘Her wing was damaged getting away from some others. Uh, I think the concept is “not family,” so another tribe or clan. Her family was small, theirs was much bigger. She’s really not good with numbers. The bigger clan attacked at night, but she… she knew something was coming and she ran. She had to squeeze through a gap to escape, and her wing tore. She can’t fly and her family is dead. She’s not an adult yet.’

  ‘She’s not?’ Clarke cut another strip of meat from the steak and tossed it over to where the fairy was crouched, listening as Sondra spoke. ‘She looks pretty mature.’

  ‘Fairies are fully mature at around two. She hasn’t seen her second spring. Anyway, her family’s gone and she’s crippled until her wing heals. She’s got nowhere to go. They can’t take cold. That’s why they tend to hide out in houses and offices over winter, and why they’re more common in the southern states. If she leaves, she’ll be dead in a day. Two at the most.’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind her staying. It’s just… I have no idea what to do with her.’

  ‘Think of h
er as… a house pet which isn’t quite socialised yet,’ Sondra said. ‘She’ll catch and kill any insect stupid enough to venture in here. She needs fresh meat and she obviously likes steak.’ They both looked at the fairy who had meat juices running down her chin and breasts as she tore at the thin strip of steak Clarke had cut for her. ‘I’ll try to get her to understand a few rules before I go. You can probably work the spell to speak to her too, so that’s covered. Uh, and I wouldn’t mind a coffee.’

  Reddening, Clarke turned to the expensive-looking coffee machine on the counter. ‘Strong and black, right?’

  Sondra grinned. ‘Just like me.’

  ~~~

  Sondra saw Grant before he spotted her. He was standing outside the street door to her apartment block, his big arms crossed over his chest and a look of irritation on his face. And she had no idea what he was doing there. He looked up suddenly as she closed the distance toward him and his expression turned to anger.

  ‘Damn! You did it, didn’t you?’ He was loud, angry, but there was concern behind it. ‘You spent the night with that–’

  ‘Shut up,’ Sondra snapped.

  ‘I won’t. It’s ten in the morning and I’ve been here since nine, and you’re just now coming back from–’

  ‘Clarke’s place,’ Sondra interrupted again. ‘He called me this morning, at seven, about a fairy problem. Now shut the Hell up.’

  ‘But I saw the reports on the news channel last night. You went to that charity shindig with him.’ So he was talking about Archer. ‘You didn’t sleep with him?’

  Sondra waved a dismissive hand. ‘Of course I did. Not that it’s any of your business. But, since you’ve brought it up, you were better than him. Now–’

  ‘Damn, Sondra. Do you know what that bastard does to women? He makes them feel like a million dollars and then he just throws them aside like–’

  ‘Grant!’ She waited for him to look at her, surprise at her harsh tone in his eyes. ‘I had sex with the man. I’m not expecting an emotional attachment. I don’t expect that from anyone I have sex with. He can’t “cast me aside,” because I would be perfectly happy to never see him again.’ She jabbed a finger into his chest and he flinched. ‘You I would’ve entertained again, but not now that you think you need to protect me. Go home. Forget about Archer.’